Scientists discover ‘shorter’ coronavirus in New Zealand bats

Scientists have discovered a plethora of viruses inside Aotearoa’s native little bats, including what could be the “shortest” coronavirus known, but stress there’s no great risk of them jumping to humans.

Quite, his new findings confirm that our two endangered species are important viral reservoirs, just like their winged counterparts abroad, despite having lived in isolation for millions of years.

While most of us are unlikely to encounter them, it turns out that our bats are the only endemic land mammals to this country, and they are among the most peculiar species to inhabit our wilderness.

He lesser short-tailed bat it exists today in two subspecies, one considered nationally endangered and the other in decline, but the great short-tailed bat has not been seen since 1967 and is probably now extinct.

long-tailed bats they are even smaller, weighing between eight and 11 grams and, although they are found throughout our continent, they are critically endangered.

University of Otago evolutionary virologist Associate Professor Jemma Geoghegan said both species had fascinating life histories.

The ancient lesser short-tailed bat, which lives in only a few places today, had been isolated for so long that it had developed some “unique behaviors,” and was only one of two bats in the world known to engage in what is called called “lek breeding”.

Scientists they were amazed to see how the males find a suitable tree cavity, sing a tune and sometimes urinate on themselves to smell nice.

While Geoghegan said they had long been known to carry many viruses, next-generation genome sequencing technology, like that used by ESR in the Covid-19 pandemic, offered an opportunity to take a closer look.

From bat guano (faeces) collected by Department of Conservation rangers from around the country, University of Otago researcher Stephanie Waller, Geoghegan and others extracted genetic material and then tested it for viruses.

“We found a lot of new viruses, particularly in long-tailed bats,” Geoghegan said.

“We also found coronaviruses in long-tailed bats that had previously been found in lesser short-tailed bats, which means that these viruses have jumped between these hosts for the two million years that they have been living here.”

It was not surprising that so many were discovered inside bats, given that viruses have been infecting animals for hundreds of millions of years, and bats were known to carry a remarkable diversity of them.

Among those identified were some coronaviruses, derived from the same broader family of RNA-related viruses that include SARS, MERS and the Sars-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19.

“Some short sequences of these viruses have been found before, but we were able to recover their complete genomes,” Geoghegan said.

“In doing so, we found that one of the viruses had a large deletion in its genome, and we believe this represents the shortest coronavirus known to date.”

in a new separate studioAlso published prior to peer review, the researchers also described two new alpha-coronavirus lineages found within the two species, with the prevalence of infection in long-tailed bats reaching 60 percent.

Geoghegan said bats were a natural reservoir for many coronaviruses around the world. New ones have just been found as well. within lesser horseshoe bats in the UK, with the new studies only showing that New Zealand was no exception.

“I think what these findings tell us is that bats have a lot of viruses, even if they have been relatively isolated for millions of years,” he said.

“This research tells us a lot about the evolution of the virus, but also helps us establish a baseline of what is present in New Zealand host species.”

And while many other mammals were prone to coronavirus infections, there was nothing to indicate that these viruses posed a risk to humans or other animals, he said.

“Ultimately, having this baseline information is helpful in managing bat health and allowing us to rapidly respond to any emerging diseases in the future.”